Invoices in the Outbox

Electronic signature capture has become a technology darling of late, one of those tools that rose to prominence in the small-package delivery business and is now garnering interest among commercial truckers. The concept is simple: you digitally record a handwritten signature from the receiver of the goods for proof of delivery, and then transmit it back to your office to kick-start the billing process. Compared with the painfully slow paperwork-relay system most truckers use now, the speed associated with sending POD data over a wireless network has huge appeal.

One of the pioneers in this arena is United Parcel Service. The package giant uses electronic signature capture to minimize the amount of paper it handles and speed up the flow of the information it needs to generate invoices. At its web site, UPS offers secure access to a copy of the digital signature on the POD, along with the delivery address, C.O.D. amount collected (if applicable), and a reference number associated with the delivery.

Quick and easy access to this information benefits not only the carrier of the goods, says Wayne Bosch, director of e-commerce for UPS Canada, but also shippers, consignees, and anyone else in the supply chain who may need it to verify delivery.

While electronic signature capture has been around for years, many of the barriers that have impeded its growth in commercial transportation are falling by the way side. New compression software has shrunk the files that need to be transmitted to a manageable size (on its own, a bitmapped, digitized handwritten signature is typically little more than 1 kilobyte). Several pen-based devices are now robust enough to handle daily use in a truck. The emergence of the Palm, Windows CE, and Pocket PC operating systems has spurred development of more useful software applications and better security technology. And there is legal support for the use of digitized signatures to authorize payment and verify services rendered.

But the fundamental reason why electronic signature capture and digital documentation is flourishing among the package-delivery giants is their ability to get customers to accept them. Where a trucking company might have only several dozen clients, an operation like UPS will have thousands, each conducting frequent but relatively low-dollar transactions. In order to be efficient, Bosch says, UPS has to reduce the amount of paper it handles and keep the invoices in the outbox. “In this case, technology cuts out three or four steps from the way things used to be done,” he says.

For most trucking companies, however, it’s either impractical to use a standard waybill or they don’t have the clout to force it on their customers. Trucking operations need a way to associate that digital handwritten signature with documents each shipper will accept.

This spring, PeopleNet and TMI, which manages the TRIPPAK Express document scanning service, plan to launch eDocument Transfer, which promises to do just that. Unlike truck-stop document scanning services, where the result is an electronic image of a piece of paper, eDocument Transfer will use data sent by the driver over PeopleNet’s communications system to populate document templates created from actual shipper paperwork.

“Once you have that signature on the driver’s handheld device, it can be married to an image of the shipper’s document and printed to paper, posted on a web site, or sent electronically throughout the entire supply chain,” says PeopleNet vice-president David Ladner.

Ladner says the transmission of data is encrypted, so the signature can’t be easily intercepted. Also, as the document is presented to customers, it has a proprietary PeopleNet watermark and identification number to prevent tampering. “You couldn’t come in and electronically cut and paste the signature onto a cheque, for example,” he says. If the driver goes back and changes information recorded prior to that signature, the signature is removed.

For some carriers, there will be limitations. The size of the electronic files means it’s probably not practical to send electronic signatures and documents using satellite-based communication systems, which are favoured by long-haulers because of its ubiquitous geographic coverage. And then there are shippers who, no matter what you present them with, will somehow find a way to drag out payment to 120 days.

But the prospect of reducing the cost of processing paper — specifically, fewer errors and a speedier billing process — make electronic signature capture technology worth a look.